“A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.”

Description taken from The Wisdom of Teams (Harvard Business School Press, 1993).

For a sales team to remain consciously competent at optimum performance levels, they require frequent injections of stimulation, motivational guidance, prompting and directing, otherwise they can easily lapse into becoming unconsciously competent or worse, unconsciously incompetent.

The primary objective of an effective Sales Leader has to be to achieve consistently superior results through the performance of every sales person.

When thinking about your own sales force:

• Do you understand their motivators – what is driving them?
• Do you have visibility of their numbers – year to date, forecast vs. required performance?
• Activity levels – are they working hard and smart enough?
• Engagement – are they talking to the right level in their prospects/accounts?
• Messaging – are they capable of delivering an appropriate message at the right level?
• Qualification – are they only spending time on deals where they can compete and ultimately that they can win?
• Closing – are they constructing successful campaigns and closing business?

A successful sales team is one that is set up correctly, responds to the responsibility it has for the task, seeks constant improvement and sees its Sales Leader as a fundamental support to its success. A sales team in this situation will do well and is more likely to go on doing well than a sales team who are just told what to do.

The Sales Leader’s role is one of catalyst – constantly helping their team to keep up with events, to change in the light of events and to succeed because it is always configured for success.

Today’s News: I am delighted to announce the launch of Phase One of the new Resource Center, over at Top Sales Experts, which includes “The Best Sales Blogs In The World” – including this one! More than thirty of the world’s top sales gurus are taking part in this project. Do go over and have a look

We are now eagerly awaiting the arrival of Phase Two on January 13th next year.

Tomorrow: On The JF Guest Author Spot – Colleen Francis – be sure to join us.

As the recession begins to bite hard, now is the time to make the very most of our most important customers.

A vitally important sales activity is that of managing existing customer accounts to consolidate and grow the relationship. Yet unfortunately, when compared over time, the customers’ interest levels increase while salespeople’s interest levels tend to decrease. This creates a “relationship gap” and is due entirely to complacency.

Another major issue is that too often the salesperson fails to expand his “contact base” as this next survey proves which results in vulnerability and exposure to competitive activity

Periodically, the Financial Times conducts a survey of British industry to establish how companies go about their purchasing. The survey is very comprehensive, broken down into many kinds of products and services.

From a Sales Director’s perspective, these are very worrying statistics.

Customer size (Number of employees): Less than 200

Average number of buying influencers: 3.43

Number of influencers visited by salespeople: 1.72
Customer size (Number of employees): 200 – 400

Average number of buying influencers: 4.85

Number of influencers visited by salespeople: 1.75
Customer size (Number of employees): 401 – 1000

Average number of buying influencers: 5.81

Number of influencers visited by salespeople: 1.90
Customer size (Number of employees): 1001 +

Average number of buying influencers: 6.50

Number of influencers visited by salespeople: 1.65

In essence, without a sustained approach to ongoing servicing and support activities, customers that took months to win are ultimately lost because there was a lack of interest from their supplier.

To-days clients/customers are looking for vendors who can be business-partners, who are willing and able to share risks and who are able to properly manage the entire sales process.

Fact: It costs seven times as much to locate and sell to a new customer
as it does to an existing one.

Are you making the most of your customer base? Answer the questions below honestly and find out.

1. How many regular clients do you have?

2. Has that number increased in the last twelve months?

3. How many of them have bought in the last three months?

4. Of those ‘regular clients’, how many have you contacted in the last month?

5. Of those, in how many have you progressed upwards from the user/recommender?

6. With how many of them do you enjoy exclusivity i.e. preferred supplier status?

7. How many of your clients have bought more the ‘second’ time around than when they originally bought from you?

8. With how many of your regular clients have you conducted an account review within the last six months?

Study your answers – are you still confident you are making the most of your most important accounts?

You may also enjoy: “How to Conduct A Formal Account Review”

Today’s News: I promised to share with you the second interview I recently did with Eyes On Sales, which focuses on achieving what I call “Top 5% Status” – you can listen in by simply clicking on the banner below.

I can now update you on the tremendous strides we have made towards the re-launch of TSE 2.0, which will be taking place in about four weeks time – it might be four and a half, you know what a perfectionist I am!

We will be adding ten new sections to be housed in a brand new “TSE Resource Area,” which will be available to subscribers.
 
1) TSE Article Vault

2) “How To” Guides

3) Podcasts

4) Webinars

5) TSE Radio

6) Ask The Experts

7) TSE Newsletter

8) TSE Blog

9) The Expert Interviews

10)  TSE Round Table

In Addition:

Of course, we will continue to release the quarterly e-books – next one is due for release early October, BUT, here is the exciting bit, Jeb Blount of Sales Gravy Press has agreed to publish us in hardback twice a year and rather than just compile a collection of our articles, we are going to make the books topic related – for example: “The Top Sales Experts on Business Development”

We will also have a Jobs Section, re-routing visitors to Sales Gravy and Salesopedia and naturally, we will continue to add new facilities as demand requires.

Ambitious? Of course, but we do not plan to put this all in place in one go. Rather, we will stagger the section launches and it should all be there by the end of November.

This really is shaping up to be the most innovative and ultimately, we believe, the most successful venture of its type.

Tomorrow: Paris is enjoying some warm Autumn sunshine right now, such a contrast to the drab grey summer we had to endure, so I will be out and about. Wherever you are, have a great w/e, and do make it back next week. – JF

 
Today, something a little highbrow, but stay with it because it’s interesting!

Everyone has a different make-up that influences how they take decisions. Ned Herrmann’s extensive research in this field led to the Herrmann Brain Theory.

There are four parts of the brain. As well as the familiar parts (the cerebral brain) – Left (realistic) and Right (idealistic) – there are also the less familiar (Limbic) parts – Top (thinking) and Bottom (doing) [based on the work of Sperry and McLean].

Components Of The Brain:
* A (upper left) Logical, analytical part
* B (lower left) Form, process, organisational part
* C (lower right) Emotional, feeling part
* D (upper right) Abstract, visioning part

The Herrmann Brain Theory:
The best performing groups have a balance between the four components of the brain, as is the case with the Star Trek officer team:

• Captain Kirk is the visionary leader ‘D’ and provides the spatial thinking
• Mr Spock is logical ‘A’ and puts the ideas into logical order and context
• ‘Bones’ McCoy expresses feelings ‘C’ and provides the emotions
• ‘Scotty’ is the pragmatic engineer ‘B’ and effects the decisions (‘I canna break the laws of physics!’)

The balance between the characters enables viewers, depending on their own character type, to empathise with one of the officers. This part accounts for the TV programme’s success.

It is important, therefore, to understand the type of person you are asking to make a decision. You have to play to his or her style. With groups you have to play to the members. People with similar profiles working together are a dysfunctional group. You will never get the best decisions as members will compete. If, for example, all were ‘Ds’, they would spend their time generating ideas but take no decisions.

Finally – Group Dynamics

Rarely are important or critical decisions taken by one person. Usually several people are involved, whether through a hierarchical process (e.g. Japanese companies) or in a group, team or committee.

Group dynamics are different from individual dynamics. Members of a group will have group objectives but also their own agenda – their own goals and characteristics.

Each individual’s personal goals …
• Rational
• Political
• Emotional
… must be understood and addressed.

Emotional
“What will I get out of this?”
“What will the impact be on my life?”

Rational
“What does it cost and what is the benefit?”
“Will it work and how long will it take?”

Political
“Will I look good in the organisation if I support this?”
“Will it advance my career?”

Today’s News: You have the opportunity to listen to me in conversation with Kevin Eikenberry on May 20th – registration is free if you click on the banner below – it will be worth it

Tomorrow: On The JF Guest Author Spot, I welcome Josiane Feigon, a very bright cookie and talented writer.